Whicker: Brown a King for life

Nineteen months ago Dustin Brown was looking at his locker and wondering how long it would take to clean it.

The Kings, playing in offensive handcuffs, were going to trade somebody and their captain was young enough, and worked cheaply enough, to be the star of the swap meet.

It did not happen. The change-of-address forms went unfilled. Brown stayed. The Kings won the Stanley Cup. Then, this spring, they went five games deep into the Western Conference final.

On Thursday Brown agreed to an eight-year contract extension that chases the major elephant out of Dean Lombardi's room.

The Kings' general manager can worry about the truly worrisome things involved in the 2013-14 season without having to address Brown's free agent cloud.

"They built this franchise with the goal of not just winning one Stanley Cup," Brown said.

Brown served as his own agent. "If I'd hired an agent we'd probably still be negotiating," he said.

In doing so Brown factored in the lower NHL salary cap next season and his own comfort level. He also has observed Rick Nash, Brad Richards and others who have taken the big-money leap and left their game behind.

Still, it is difficult to imagine a professional negotiator getting better numbers for Brown than he got for himself.

The average annual value of the deal is $5.875 million, which is the salary cap figure. It takes effect after Brown finishes his current contract, which will pay $3.17 million this season.

In real dollars Brown gets $7.25M in the first two years of the deal, then $7M in 2016-17, when Brown will be 32. Then the contract pays $6.5M the next year, $5.5M each of the two years after that, and $4M in the final two years.

Hey, it's the way history works. Kings never have had term limits.

This anticipates a large jump in the salary cap, based on revenues, but it also presupposes that Brown, who marched through the playoffs on a bad knee, will produce again. In 18 playoff games he gave the Kings four points, and only 11 goals in the regular season.

However, his 0.63 points-per-game last season is actually higher than his 0.61 career average. The Kings are paying for Brown's accessories, like the 155 hits that placed Brown eighth in the NHL, and the competitive compass.

"It was no secret that when Dustin came into the league, this wasn't the easiest locker room for a young player," Lombardi said. "Now you see the way he treats kids like (Tyler) Toffoli when they come up.

"The first time he sat across the desk from me he didn't say two words. Now he's sitting there negotiating a contract. It was a refreshing experience, because he wasn't saying he was better than someone else and should get paid like it, but it also shows how far he's come in his development."

Asked if he were concerned that Drew Doughty might be short-cutting his way through conditioning, during the too-quick summer, Brown laughed.

"I think a lot of guys will be checking on him," Brown said. "Really, you've got players spread out throughout the world. It's ultimately the player's responsibility to do what he needs to do to get ready. And on this team, if a player doesn't live up to that, the coaches and the front office won't have to say much. The other players will be the ones to, uh, push him."

Would Brown have won the same wage in the open market next summer, or was he willing to take the gamble that the numbers would return? Now those questions are moot, as are most others for the Kings.

For the next two seasons the Kings know they will have Brown, Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Slava Voynov, Justin Williams, Jarret Stoll, and Robyn Regehr.

Two years is about as deep into the future as you can realistically dig in professional sports. But the Kings have Brown and Carter signed through 2022, Quick through 2023, Richards through 2020 and Doughty and Voynov through 2019.

Presumably, this makes for a tighter band of brotherhood on the ice and greater fealty among the fan base. The pain that the Kings felt over the necessity of liberating Rob Scuderi won't be an annual ordeal.

Lombardi, in fact, was bemoaning the "compliance buyouts" that teams used on players they no longer wanted.

"They were rewarded for the mistakes they made," Lombardi said. "We didn't have anybody we wanted to buy out."

No, they just had a captain who so wanted to stay that he handled his own contract instead of paying someone else.